When I lived in Seattle and partied a lot, I ran a party mailing list. I would forward you all the cool parties in Seattle for no fee or any other interest than having you show up at the party. That is, you’re cool and I want to party with you. I had hundreds of people in my list. That went both ways since I received information about cool parties. Some people were bad at forwarding me stuff though, so someone (I am not sure whether it was me) came up with the I F Y Y F M E concept: I forward you, you forward me.

The contract stipulates that you must forward me any party information and I must do the same. Here’s a sample text.

As a condition of maintaining a healthy communication level between the undersigned managers, their subsidiaries, affiliates, successors or assigns (together the “Organization”), and in consideration of employment with the Company and the receipt of the compensation now and hereafter paid to the undersigned by Company, we agree to the following:

IFYYFME: We agree at all times during the term of my employment, to forward any information for the benefit of each-other and the Company, and to mutually disclose all information that has not already made available.

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION: …

Signed …

I think this could work well in the work place where we can resolve issues, including sales people unwilling to use an RSS reader and feeling that Engineering withholds information or where you want to share gossip in a more structured way.

With an IFYYFME contract, can we reach the right frequency of communication?

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